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*****Beautiful Skin: A People of Color Anthology*****
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So, Amazon came through and provided a preorder link. Really fast. See link below the Preorder image. In addition, I got notified that Z Publishing House released the Georgia Emerging Writers Anthology I mentioned earlier this year. That link is below the cover for it. 😀 It’s a paperback so it’s a bit more expensive but you get to see all kinds of other stories. They are all short, less than 1250 words each. While building this post (over the course of several hours because of other things), I found out that a third anthology recently released that has my 300 word flash fiction in it. Impact: Queer Sci Fi’s Fifth Annual Flash Fiction Contest. Whoa. Things just real, really fast. 🙂

So, readers. I’m an officially published author with multiple publications under my belt. How did that happen? A lot of work. Thank you Emmy, the POC FB Group, J. Scott Coatsworth

So, I was invited to join this anthology by the publisher, Z Publishing House, way back in May. I was able to pick and submit 5 options, on my birthday no less. A month later, they’d picked one! The Lotto Ticket was a submission I did to a Fantasy and Science Fiction Flash Fiction contest that would turn your 500 word submission into a podcast. Well, I didn’t make it past the first round, and it had been languishing since. I did a few edits but basically left it the way it was written and near the 500 words. I liked the story a lot for being so short. This is a paperback but you do get to see other emerging writers from the lovely state of Georgia that I call home. They run the gamut of stories, and not just LGBTQ or even romance. I think you will like it.

Having begun as a blog in the fall of 2015, Z Publishing, LLC, soon transitioned into book publishing. This transition came in response to the major problem currently plaguing the publishing world: For writers, finding new readers can be tremendously difficult, and for readers, finding new talented authors with whom they identify is like searching for a needle in a haystack. With Z Publishing, no longer will anyone have to go about this process alone. By producing anthologies of multiple authors rather than single-author volumes, Z Publishing hopes to foster a community of readers and writers, bringing all sides of the industry closer together.

And now for the third anthology that I just found out released July 26, 2018. It’s the Queer Sci Fi’s 5th annual Flash Fiction contest that I a contribution for the 4th year in a row. 🙂 I’m very proud of that. Without further adieu, here is Impact!

Four definitions to inspire writers around the world, and an unlimited number of possible stories to tell, but only 110 made the final cut.

A difficult choice to be made. An object hurtling recklessly through space. A new invention that will change the world. So many things can impact a life, a society, or a planet.

Impact features 300 word speculative fiction ficlets from across the queer spectrum from the minds of the writers of Queer Sci Fi.

Welcome to Impact.

Series Blurb:

It’s hard to tell a story in just 300 words. Each year we ask writers to take the challenge, turning in stories across the queer spectrum. The rules are simple. Write a complete sci fi, fantasy, paranormal or horror story, include LGBTIQA characters, and do it all with just 300 carefully chosen words.

Excerpt (Non-Exclusive):

Since this book is composed of stories of no more than 300 words, we can’t really do a standard excerpt, so we’re offering you the teaser first lines from a number of stories.

“She’d needed new oil. She felt her joints grow stiff, her muscles grow tight, her follicles thickening. If she didn’t get fresh quarts soon, people she passed would start calling her sir, asking, Where’s your gun?” —Crossville Station, by Nathan Alling Long

“The mallet’s impact on the hard, bright disk shattered the silence in the talking chamber. The resulting deep tone reverberated through the vault, through Saskia, as she fidgeted beside her lover.” —Settled, by Aidee Ladnier

“This is how the world ends, or so they say. From where I’m standing, it simply looks like a rolling darkness as distant lights flicker and die.” —Visitors, by LJ Phillips

“’What have you done?’ The mechanical eyes came to rest on his face, the droning beep sounding loud in the small room.” —Identity and Change, by Jo Tannah

“’Once upon a world, we were the same,’ he said, lifting my hand to his lips; the ground shaking beneath us.” —Impact, by Jack Ladd

“I been a tinker and soothsayer long enough to know this country’s at the cusp of war. They stir up hate easy as breath. And, oh, it pains my soul to see it. “ —Impact of Intervention, by Patricia Scott

“All lives begin with a messy impact of some kind. The crash of zygotes and gametes. Splats of silica gel between cybernetic synapses. Two women slam into each other carrying full cups of coffee.” —Quintessence, by E.M. Hammill

“It touched Ligaya when she was a child. Or she touched it. A half-glimpsed shape under her bed.” Mas Mabuti An Answang, by Foster Bridget Cassidy

“Jam zipped down the neon track, feather-light in low gravity. She rocketed forward, a glowing haze in her starred helmet, and shot past the pack. “Space Jammer!” echoed as she neared the line. Time to rack up the points.” —First Bout: Andromedolls Vs. Crotch Rockets, by Ginger Streusel

About Queer Sci Fi:

At Queer Sci Fi, we’re building a community of sci fi, fantasy, paranormal and horror writers and readers who want a little rainbow in their speculative fiction. We run a great discussion group on Facebook, a twitter feed, and have a website full of useful materials, news, and announcements for readers and writers of queer speculative fiction.

I’m so excited to announce the people of color anthology, Beautiful Skin, that’s been a long time in the making will be here by the end of the month! My story, an MMM romance, is included. More information to be shared the closer we get! Follow me on social media to see announcements for events, author takeovers, and more!

Help us celebrate diversity while supporting a great charity as 50% of the proceeds go to Sickle Cell research. Don’t forget to add it to your TBR list below! Please share far and wide from here and social media. We appreciate you!

*•.¸(`*•.¸(`*•.¸★¸.•*´)¸.•*´)¸.•*´
*****Beautiful Skin: A People of Color Anthology*****
¸.•*´(¸.•*´(¸.•*´★`*•.¸)`*•.¸)`*•.¸

Release date: 8/23/18 (pre-order coming soon)

Add this wonderfully diverse anthology to your Goodreads TBR list today, because you won’t want to miss it when it releases!!

So, I did this thing with #CampNaNoWriMo. I met my goal but my story is not finished yet. I will hopefully finish in the next week or two, send to betas and get it edited. I’m sort of running out of time as it’s due by the end of the month. We’ll see.

I also did this other thing. I submitted an excerpt of a little under 800 words to Carina Press’s Blog Critique scene submission call of a WIP that I’ve been kicking around off and on for awhile now (almost two years). Did I mention I tend to write slow? 🙂 I just received the email that my story, Sparkle Vampire, was selected randomly for posting to their blog and a Carina editor will provide feedback there! I will let everyone know when it’s posted and if you want to provide feedback, please do.

Wow. I really did win that opportunity. I wasn’t expecting them to accept it, but that’s cool. I’ll get some feedback and maybe I’ll work on it and see about filling it out. Now, to finish my MMM I’m working on. *smile*

In addition to this, and around my Real Life of working full time, I was asked to submit to America’s Emerging Writers (Series) by Z Publishing for Georgia. Their submission deadline is in a couple of weeks. More information is here: https://www.zpublishinghouse.com/blogs/upcoming-books/americas-emerging-writers-series. It’s intriguing concept, and I may submit. Maximum is 5 stories (excerpts are accepted but they prefer stand-alone stories to 1250 words). I’m not sure if I have time but it is definitely fascinating. Check them out as they are looking for submission for all US states. If they accept your submission, it will be published in the anthology they are compiling for the entire country. They’ve done a poetic one already. I wish I knew about that because that looked fun too. 🙂

Whew! It’s been a fun couple of months for me in the writing world. Now back to my writing. The muse is strong today.

So, it’s been a week since my last update. I feel like I’m in a ‘writing’ anonymous meeting. Is there such a thing? Well, us writers need a lot of support, so probably. 🙂

I’m continuing to write on my MMM Menage for an anthology compilation (more info will be coming once everyone finishes and we figure out a publishing date).

Pretty close to finishing Camp NaNoWriMo even though I didn’t write as often as I wanted. I did something to my lower back mid-month and took almost 2 weeks off because of that. I did get a surprising amount of words done a few days ago. I plan to reach word goal by end of month but it will depend on if I get time. I have a full plate for this weekend.

After a doctors appointment last Friday, I had to make some changes to my diet and exercise. I’ve been walking 10 min a day (to start off) and changing my diet to a keto/Atkins-based diet where I have limited carbs per meal. As of Wednesday, I lost a pound so something is going right.

Well, this is going to be kind of short. 🙂 I’ll follow up with another update soon.

Like this:

I’m still writing. Honest. I know I said I would do an update earlier in the month but the month got away from me.

Work has been interesting. I say that a lot. Then I lost internet yesterday. Grrr. Seems some animal wanted to chew through the phone wire and phone company had to come out and lay a temp wire to fix. Sigh. The line will get buried next week.

I’ve got almost 5k of words. w00t!!

Goal is 10k. Might be higher. Not sure as it will depend on the characters and what they want to say. Then editing, maybe a beta read or two, then to my new editor. 🙂 it will be published in an anthology this year. Not sure when yet. I’ll keep you posted on progress.

I have an ARC review I need to post. MMMM (yes, four guys) ménage and it’s mpreg. My favorites. Be on the look out for that this weekend now that I have internet back.

What else? I’m drawing a blank. There was something else… Oh well. I guess I’ll do an update post once I remember what it was.